On June 20, 2011, ALJ Theodore R. Essex issued the public version of Order No. 26 in Certain Semiconductor Chips and Products Containing Same (Inv. No. 337-TA-753).

By way of background, this Investigation is based on a December 1, 2010 complaint filed by Rambus, Inc., of Sunnyvale, California (“Rambus”) alleging violation of Section 337 by more than thirty named Respondents, including Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. of Austin, Texas (“Freescale”), Broadcom Corporation of Irvine, California (“Broadcom”), Cisco Systems, Inc., of San Jose, California, and Motorola, Inc., of Schaumburg, Illinois for infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 6,470,405; 6,591,353; 7,287,109; 7,602,857; 7,602,858; and/or 7,715,494.  See our January 5, 2011 post for more details.

In the Order, ALJ Essex granted a joint motion filed by Rambus and Freescale to terminate the Investigation as to Freescale based on a settlement agreement.  The joint motion stated that the Rambus-Freescale settlement agreement also resolves Rambus’s infringement claims against products of so-called “Customer Respondents” to the extent those claims were based solely on incorporating Freescale’s products into the products of the Customer Respondents.  The joint motion added, however, that the settlement agreement does not resolve claims raised against non-Freescale products incorporated in products of Customer Respondents.

Broadcom objected to the joint motion on the grounds that redactions in the confidential version of the settlement documents went beyond financial terms, and that the financial terms themselves were relevant to Respondents' defenses including obviousness, domestic industry, patent exhaustion, and remedy.  ALJ Essex rejected Broadcom’s arguments and determined that redactions of  “financial terms” need not be limited solely to numerical settlement numbers, and absent a representation from Rambus that it will rely upon this settlement in the Investigation, ALJ Essex does not find it relevant.